April 7. Tuesday. Went to wall:in the woods. WhenI had got half a mile or more away in the woods alone,and was sitting oil a rock, Nvas surprised to be joinedby It’s large Newfoundland dog Ranger, who hadsmelledme out and so tracked me.Would that I could add his woodcraft to my own! He would trot along before me as far as the winding wood-path allowed me to see him, and then, with the shortest possible glance over his shoulder, ascertain if I was following. At a fork in the road he would pause, look back at me, and deliberate which course I would take.

Weather changes at last to drizzling.
In criticising your writing, trust your fine instinct.There are many things which we come very near ques-tioning, but do not question. When I have sent offmy manuscripts to the printer, certain objectionablesentences or expressions are sure to obtrude themselves on my attention with force, though I had not con-sciously suspected them before. My critical instinct then at once breaks the ice and comes to the surface.

WALDEN CANDLE  /  $50

Did they read the book?

All enterprises must be self-supporting, must pay for themselves. The great art of life is how to turn the surplus life of the soul into life for the body — that so the life not be a failure. For instance, a poet must sustain his body with his poetry. As is said of the merchants, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the life of men is a failure, and bankruptcy may be surely prophesied. You must get your living by loving.

—Journal, March 13, 1853

It is worth the while to have lived a primitive wilderness life at some time, to know what are, after all, the necessaries of life and what methods society has taken to supply them. I have looked over the old day-books of the merchants with the same view, – to see what it was shopmen bought. They are the grossest groceries. Salt is perhaps the most important article in such a list, and most commonly bought at the stores, of articles commonly thought to be necessaries, – salt, sugar, molasses, cloth, etc., – by the farmer. You will see why stores or shops exist, not to furnish tea and coffee, but salt, etc. Here’s the rub, then.

I see how I could supply myself with every other article which I need, without using the shops, and to obtain this might be the fit occasion for a visit to the seashore. Yet even salt cannot strictly speaking be called a necessary of human life, since many tribes do not use it.